The Roaming MRL Montana Rail Link Locomotives of 2024

Years ago, it wasn't terribly uncommon to find a Montana Rail Link locomotive roaming around the country, particularly on BN/BNSF rails. However, after MRL modernized their locomotive fleet with the acquisition of a bunch of SD70ACe locomotives, they kept their power at home.

On January 1st, 2024, MRL's lease was terminated and the railroad was folded into BNSF. Within a couple of months, MRL's SD70ACe locomotives started to venture out of captivity and began roaming the BNSF network (and the rest of the U.S. at large) since they were essentially now just part of the BNSF locomotive fleet.

I managed to catch 5 such locomotives this year (and is the first time I saw any of them in person), and those catches are featured in this video. As luck would have it, the 5 catches occurred in vastly different corners of the BNSF network: Washington State, Southern California, and the Chicago area.

I don't know what the future holds for these locomotives. Will they be sold or put into storage? Will they cycle through Topeka, KS and get modernized and re-painted into BNSF colors? Or will this status quo continue for several more years to come? Hopefully that last option is what happens, but if not, then there was at least one year where they got to add some variety out on the rails!